1) The model of the traditional production company is falling away. For us to stay relevant and a contributor within the industry we can not just think of ourselves as creators of the :30/60 spot.
Now more then ever with the digital video boom and the popularity of influencers, it’s all about the content and creating interesting stories without the hard sell.
This means emphasizing our creative ability to our clients is key. We have to tap into our team and show our clients that we can help and partner with them at the early stages of conception to develop thoughtful and impactful content developing their brand stories.
We are all storytellers. It’s all about creating content that is interesting and relatable to a wide audience.
The excitement for me is to continue to build our team with the current trend of our industry at the forefront of my mind. Concentrating on finding opportunities that allow us to be content developers and creators in partnership with our clients is the ultimate goal.
2) As the industry shifts towards more experiential and non traditional branded content targeted towards more savvy consumers, we have seen a dramatic uptick in the asks for episodic branded content series development. Our background in original content gives us a unique edge in that market and lead Droga5 to enlist us to create a 5 part episodic content series profiling 5 influencers for the new google Pixel3 lunch this last year called #Unswitchables. In developing this series with our agency partner, we put together a classic Hollywood style writers room, with head writers from notable comedy central shows like “The Daily Show” and “Nathan for You”. Over a month long production schedule, James David from “Hood Adjacent” fame lead our characters through a process that inevitably ended in their phone switch. This type of content which seamlessly blends the entertainment world of soft scripted reality and product centric branded content is a strong example of the industry shift away from the traditional 30/60 second spot and engaging with viewers in a more relatable way.
4) As large multinational ad agencies strive to fulfill the growing amounts of content that their clients are asking for, they are taking post-production and now increasing amounts of live action production in-house. This trend of agency in-house capabilities has lead many production companies to expand their offerings into the creative & strategy space that has traditionally been dominated by ad agencies.
As production companies and large agencies vie for the same brand clients, the real question becomes; “who has the larger bureaucracy and overhead that eats up client retainers?” As smaller business’, its much easier for production companies to get into the creative and strategy space as compared to the behemoth agencies of yesteryear. Our flexibility to scale up to meet a larger clients needs and scale down during lulls in production, makes us a more agile competitor in a world of decreased AOR relationships and increased per project RFP’s.
This fight over the same slice of the production/creative pie will inevitably become more and more intense.